


All I Wish I'd Said

by momebie (katilara)



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 16:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/pseuds/momebie
Summary: Luther had once chastised Klaus for letting his mouth get in the way of his thinking, but that had been a misread on their dear number one’s part. It was his impulsive, restless body that got in the way. His mouth was fourth in line at least, if not still before his brain. It was just that impulses moved so quickly through him, even when he was high. The speed of thought may be close to the speed of light, but the rest of him was in constant, exhausting warp.(Or, some time in the eye of the storm.)





	All I Wish I'd Said

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a drabble for a meme over on [my tumblr](https://charmingpplincardigans.tumblr.com), but uh, oops. I was given the word 'cherish' as a prompt, this is where my brain took it. More soft moments for our son 2k19!

Dave called it the space between breaths. Those brief moments of calm around all of the chaos and fear that their life in Vietnam was. In the war there was a lot of gasping and shouting, heaving chests and quickly moving lips jumping from one prayer to the next, bared teeth and dry tongues. It was tempting to become the shout.

It was especially tempting for Klaus, who had always moved through the world with the most immediate presence available to him. Which was to say, he was always physically present, always in motion, always throwing his whole body into everything he was doing, whether it was a packet of ramen or a fight. He let his movements speak for him, carve out the space he didn’t always feel like he could afford to take up mentally. He cannonballed into every situation and then waited for his mind to catch up.

Luther had once chastised Klaus for letting his mouth get in the way of his thinking, but that had been a misread on their dear number one’s part. It was his impulsive, restless body that got in the way. His mouth was fourth in line at least, if not still before his brain. It was just that impulses moved so quickly through him, even when he was high. The speed of thought may be close to the speed of light, but the rest of him was in constant, exhausting warp.

The war was made for bodies in motion. The army wanted bullets not banter. Too much thinking about orders got people killed. Or, well, the wrong people killed. The war was built on the gasp and shout and, for all of the truly horrid circumstances he found himself in, he couldn't help but feel like he'd finally found a place that could keep up with him. But other people, Klaus was learning, for the most part, were not made for this endless wringing out of life.

Dave especially was not, and that was part of what had drawn Klaus to him. (That, and his broad football all-star chest and kind, Norman Rockwell smile.)  Dave moved efficiently, and if he didn’t absolutely have to move, he didn’t. Dave was the rest in the beat, calm, steady. Breathe in. Dave. Breathe out. Dave.

They were waiting, and waiting made Klaus nervous. Waiting just meant a buildup of energy, overcharge, caution: sensitive explosive materials on the premises. The speed he’d taken wasn’t helping. He could feel his skin buzz with it, hear his blood humming through his veins. He wanted to jump or run or dance or, or start an argument maybe. That always worked back home. His other soldiers weren’t as easy to goad as his siblings, though. Probably because he didn’t know any of them well enough to know the worst thing to say.

He was learning more and more about Dave every day, but he did not want to waste time arguing with Dave. He very much wanted to do other things with Dave.

As if he knew, Dave reached over and placed his hand on Klaus’s knee.

Klaus looked up at him sharply—quick jerk of the head, slight raise of his eyebrows. This seemed like a very bad place for all of that. They were seated at the edge of the group of soldiers where they usually settled, this time partially hidden by a rack of munitions. Hidden or not, they were still surrounded by the rest of the unit, but he was game. If there was one defining characteristic he had cultivated over the last thirteen years, it was that he was always game. _For what?_ he imagined someone asking him. He imagined himself giving them his most lascivious grin and saying, _Oh, whatever_.

“Stop,” Dave whispered.

Klaus’s mental grin slipped. His real life lips dipped into a slight pout. “What?”

“Moving. You’re going to shake out of your skin, and then you’re going to shake me out of mine.”

Klaus shrugged. “I’ve known plenty of people to get on just fine without their skins.”

He placed his hand next to Dave’s on his leg and pushed down, trying to force himself to still. Regardless of impulse, Klaus never said no to a beautiful person. Whether he could successfully follow through with a request was another matter altogether.

“Dead people?” Dave asked.

“Some of them,” Klaus replied.

Dave took a deep breath and then exhaled for a full ten count. “I don’t want to be a dead person.”

“I have bad news for you, Dave.” Klaus pulled his hand off his leg and worried at a hangnail on his thumb with his teeth.

“Soon,” Dave amended. “I don’t want to be a dead person soon.”

“I don’t want that either.” Klaus pulled his thumb from his mouth, wiped it against his pants, and then placed his hand on top of Dave’s hand on his knee. “Even though it would be a surefire way to get you all to myself.”

“I’d rather have a body if you were going to have me at all, if it’s all the same to you.”

Klaus thought about Dave’s body—calloused fingers, strong arms, solid chest, soft lips, bright blue eyes, a truly lovely bottom that the uniform pants did nothing for. The only problem Klaus could find with Dave’s body was that he hadn’t mapped every part of it yet with his hands and his mouth. That was down to circumstance. He was confident he’d get there.

“Touché,” Klaus said.

His knee started going again. Dave squeezed it. Klaus squeezed Dave’s hand. Dave arched his hand up and tangled their fingers together.

“Look at me,” he said.

Klaus did.

Dave closed his eyes. He took an exaggerated breath in and then slowly let it out. He did it again, squeezing Klaus’s hand at the top and bottom of every breath. Without trying, Klaus’s breathing started to match up with Dave’s. He closed his eyes and sat up straighter, because it seemed like the thing to do.

Dave exhaled and squeezed his hand. “Do you feel that?”

“Your hand?” Klaus asked, because he didn’t know what else he was meant to feel. He felt the air moving through his lungs. He still felt his skin buzzing and he could still hear his blood. Somewhere near them there was a mosquito. He could hear it, but it didn’t sound too dangerously close. But all of that was normal, commonplace, not something to be pointed out or paid attention to. All of that would be there when this was over.

“No,” Dave said, voice soft. “That space, between the breaths. That split moment of just…being.”

Dave continued to gently squeeze Klaus’s hand between breaths. Breathe in. Dave. Breathe out. Dave.

“Yeah man,” Klaus said, squeezing his hand back. “That’s still just you.”

“Shut up,” Dave said. “Stop trying so hard to take up all the space. Just, be.”

“If I don’t take up the space, who will?”

“The world got on just fine before you,” Dave said.

It seemed like a harsh thing to say, but Klaus knew what he meant. His desire to fill the space around him was not a reciprocated desire. The world didn’t care what he did with himself. The people around him often emphatically did not want him taking up more space.

Neither of those things had ever stopped him, because he was a person who was always overflowing. If he didn’t bleed into the space around him, where was he meant to bleed? Nowhere, probably, but that sounded like a disappointingly ascetic way to live. Maybe this was a hippy thing. Klaus hadn’t pegged Dave as having been a hippy before he showed up here, but he’d also never asked.

Maybe Klaus should ask Dave more questions.

“Your breath,” Dave said, even more quietly than he had already been speaking. His voice was barely audible to Klaus over the hum of his own life. Probably, none of the other men could hear him. “Is precious to me.”

Klaus did feel something then. There was an almost-feeling of something popping in his chest and then a foreign warmth flooded his body. Every tensed muscle in him seemed to sigh in relief as he relaxed, let himself fall to rest in a way he hadn’t in a very long time. For a moment, it felt like he didn’t have to go to the world, it felt like maybe the world would come to him.

There was a pressure building in his chest and at the back of his throat, a new impulse. He didn’t have a name for it yet, but he very suddenly wanted to give Dave whatever Dave wanted of him. He wanted to follow Dave wherever Dave wanted to go. He wanted to melt into him, to overflow into a new space.

“Klaus?” Dave asked.

There was a hesitance in his voice that made Klaus open his eyes. Dave was looking at him, head tilted, mouth in a thin line, and Klaus realized that Dave had been expecting a response to that. Once again, his body was four steps ahead of his brain.

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing down the rambling essay about everything Dave was to him that was building itself on the tip of his tongue. This wasn’t the place for that. There probably wouldn’t ever be a place for that. “Yes. Me too. I’m…”

“Yeah?” Dave’s expression broke into a wide smile.

Klaus smiled back to match.

Carlson entered the tent then, barking orders, and everyone jumped. It was time to get back to the gasping and shouting. Klaus took the moment and tucked it away inside of him, as if by doing so he could somehow manage to keep them both safe inside of it forever.


End file.
